Nothing To Lose

16-year Slump Only Makes Soap Star Lucci More Famous

May 21, 1997|By Bill Behrens. Special to the Tribune.

She has stared down a grizzly bear. Been sealed in a Hungarian crypt. Impersonated a nun. Faked amnesia. Overcome addiction. Orchestrated a prison breakout, complete with helicopter. And that's not the half of it. Along the way, she has made an enemy of almost every woman in Pine Valley and seduced almost every man. She's Erica Kane.

From high school vixen to deceitful young wife to disco proprietor, from supermodel to cosmetics CEO to national talk-show host, Erica Kane Martin Brent Cudahy Chandler Montgomery Montgomery Chandler Marick Marick has had it all. So too, it would seem, has the woman who has made a career out of portraying her, actress Susan Lucci. Reputedly the highest paid of daytime actors, Lucci has been working the role of a lifetime since "All My Children" made its debut on ABC in 1970. TV Guide recently declared Lucci one of its Top 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time, the only soap actor to make the list.

Yet, in spite of all the acclaim, Lucci is most famous for losing. Sixteen times. The saga continues Wednesday night, when she will vie yet again for the Outstanding Lead Actress trophy as the Daytime Emmy awards -- honoring the best in soap operas, talk shows, game shows and children's programming -- air live from New York's Radio City Music Hall at 7 o'clock on WLS-Ch. 7.

"I don't know how she does it," says Michael Logan, soap columnist for TV Guide. "Last year I was sitting three or four rows behind Susan, who was in the front row, and there was a mini-cam parked right under her nose the entire show. With every Lucci joke from the stage, and as the crowds were screaming `Lucci! Lucci! Lucci!' like you've never heard before, they got her reaction. It's merciless, the attention on this woman during this awards show."

Will 17 be the charm for La Lucci? Don't bank on it. But on Thursday, regardless of the outcome, the headlines in newspapers across America will all bear Lucci's name. If she loses, again, bet on the name of the woman who trumped her to be tucked several paragraphs down.

Like "Who was Jack the Ripper?" and "Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone?" the question "Why can't Susan win?" has become a conundrum for the ages.

"It really is one of the great unsolved mysteries," says Logan. And no insights are forthcoming from "All My Children" -- two of Lucci's Emmy-winning co-stars, as well as the show's executive producer, declined to comment on Lucci's losses, and the star herself was said to be too busy to be interviewed.

Last year was supposed to be the breakthrough for Lucci, because of her performances in a shattering story line that nearly destroyed the indomitable Erica. In the wake of a serious back injury, the diva plummeted into a prescription-painkiller addiction, and after a disastrous public bottoming-out -- at, of all places, a media awards show -- our heroine admitted her problem and sought help at the Betty Ford Clinic.

(How beloved is Lucci's Erica Kane? Several concerned fans actually sent cards and flowers addressed to the fictional Ms. Kane in care of the clinic.)

The yearlong story elicited Lucci's best work ever, demanding a vulnerability and range from the actress that most critics agreed they had never before seen. People in the industry were so convinced she would win, the Emmy producers allocated an extra two minutes near the end of the telecast for the anticipated thunderous ovation and her acceptance speech.

But the victor was Erika Slezak of "One Life to Live," who had beaten Lucci four times previously -- and, with last year's addition, practically has an Emmy for each of her character's multiple personalities. As the stunner was announced, the reaction shots revealed nothing but a stoic Susan.

Gracious loser

If only Lucci would throw a tantrum or even scowl a bit. Instead, she has elevated losing to an art form.

The sense of humor with which Lucci approaches her unparalleled streak -- she has mocked herself as host of "Saturday Night Live" and in a joking TV commercial -- has rocketed her into the greater stratosphere of American pop culture. The Chicago band Urge Overkill recorded an admiring rock tribute to Erica in 1993, whose first lyric is, nonetheless, "Erica Kane, another Emmy passed you by." And Tribune columnist Clarence Page got into the act back in 1991 by coining a new word: "Luccied (pronounced LOO-cheed): To be passed over again and again."

The woman is no mere actress; she's an icon.

"Susan would not ever say this, because she desperately wants that thing and she's certainly entitled to it, but this (annual defeat) is the best thing going," Logan says.